Moldova: 16 Acts Straight To The Final

After last year’s success with Sunstroke Project and their song “Hey Mamma!”, the pressure is on in Moldova, or is it really? A little hard to tell, because only 28 songs were originally submitted for the national song selection.

Moldova achieved their best ever placing in the Eurovision Song Contest last year, in Kiev, when Sunstroke Project managed to bring the country on the podium, finishing in an impressive 3rd place.

The question afterwards was, did this spark any interest in Moldova? This is indeed hard to tell, as Moldova hit a record low number of submissions this year. It is possible, however, that the pressure is so high that many felt they couldn’t live up to a 3rd place at the song contest.

The Auditions

Nonetheless, this didn’t stop Moldova, and the national broadcaster TRM, from doing what they’ve always done. Everyone who submitted an entry was invited to take part in the live auditions.

Originally, 28 songs were submitted, but one entry was then disqualified. Pelageya Stefoglo was originally going to take part in the auditions with the song “Let’s Start Together Right Now“, but was disqualified due to taking part in the Belarusian auditions earlier this month. This meaning that only 27 songs were eligible to take part.

Without further ado, the show had to go on, and so we had the participants performing in the following order:

Sasha Bognibov – Love

Anna Timofei – Endlessly

Che-MD – Inima-n Stîngă

Maria Codreanu – Zâmbește Soarelui

Ruslan Tsar – Come To Life

Doinița Gherman – Dance in Flames

Sandy C & Aaron Sibley – Once Upon A Time

Tolik – Broken Glass

Dima Gaitur – Ona Moya

Vera Țurcanu – Black Heart

5 Stele – Moldavian Dance

Tudor Bumbac – Numai Pentru Tine

DoReDos – My Lucky Day

Bostan – Frățică

Felicia Dunaf – Alien

Nicoleta Sava – Esencia Del Sur

Lavinia Rusu – Altundeva

Marina Cudalb – Bianco E Nero

Denny Feyton – Maybe It’s Love

Laura Bagrii – Da Bucuriei

Anna Odobescu – Agony

Ilia Sorocean & Dasha DaGro – Minds & Veins

Bella Luna – Moments

Shvets – The World

Saidy – Beauty Song

Constantin Cobîlean – Numai Tu

Viorela – The Gates of Love

A jury was in charge of the selecting originally planned 14 acts that would qualify to the national selection, which is O Melodie Pentru Europa itself. Among the jury members, we had Nelly Ciobanu who represented Moldova in 2009 with the song “Hora Din Moldova“.

The Finalists

The jury would rank all the songs in pure Eurovision style, with 12, 10 and 8-1 points to their favorites. Then the 14 best ranked songs would qualify to the semi-final that was planed to take place on the 22nd of February.

However, at the request of the jury committee, it was instead decided that a total of 16 acts would qualify to the live shows, but at the same time, the semi-final would be dropped.

Therefore, the following 16 songs will take part in the grand final, which will take place on the 24th of February: (Alphabetical order by name)

Anna Odobescu – Agony

Anna Timofei – Endlessly

Bella Luna – Moments

Che-MD – Inima-n Stîngă

Constantin Cobîlean – Numai Tu

Doinița Gherman – Dance in Flames

DoReDos – My Lucky Day

Felicia Dunaf – Alien

Ilia Sorocean & Dasha DaGro – Minds & Veins

Lavinia Rusu – Altundeva

Nicoleta Sava – Esencia Del Sur

Ruslan Tsar – Come To Life

Sandy C & Aaron Sibley – Once Upon A Time

Tolik – Broken Glass

Vera Țurcanu – Black Heart

Viorela – The Gates of Love

The winner of the final will be decided by 50% jury and 50% televote.

Should you have any interest or if you feel like giving yourself a challenge, there you can watch the full live audition show right here.

The last question for now is: Who do #YOU hope to see in Lisbon representing Moldova?